Chocolate Galettes

This is another of my recipes that completely gets around flour for Passover by using almond flour in the first place, and are pareve. These have a different texture that is really nice.

Ingredients (makes 16-18):
1-1/4 c. almond flour
1 c. grated semisweet chocolate (I use those large bars made for Passover, and grate with an old-fashioned grater)
2/3 c. sugar
1 egg

Steps:
Chocolate Galettes
Preheat oven to 350*.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, combine all ingredients. Using a small/medium scoop, place galette mixture onto parchment paper. Bake 10-12 minutes, cool on rack.
Chocolate Galettes

Pineapple Flan

While some try their hand at baking the most un-Passover desserts (while still being entirely within the realm of what’s allowed during Passover) — those being the most can-you-believe-this-is-for-Passover brownie/cake/etc, I take an entirely different tack.

With one exception — those little cake bites that my kids and their friends like that I make from the Manischewitz Pesach cake mixes — I mostly switch over to my French cookbooks, which use almond flour (or nothing in that family to begin with) and are pareve (neither dairy or meat). That’s what I did with this pineapple flan, which turned out to be really terrific:
Recipe:
1 c. sugar 
36 oz. pineapple chunks in juice
6 eggs
1/3 c. almond flour
Juice of one lemon
Steps:
Pineapple Flan
Make this a few hours ahead of time, or even the night before your meal.
Take a springform pan and wrap the outsides entirely in aluminum foil. This is insurance that water from the water bath it will be going in to can’t seep in and bathe your beautiful dessert.
Preheat the oven to 350*.
Make a caramel by mixing 1/2 cup sugar with 1/8 c. water and cooking until the sugar dissolves and starts turning a caramel color. Carefully, carefully pour that into the springform pan to coat the insides. Going to be crazy-hot.
In a large pan, combine the remaining sugar, and the pineapple chunks with their juice. Let this boil for ten minutes and it will reduce very nicely. Turn the heat down to low.
In a separate bowl, crack the eggs and add almond flour and lemon juice. Mix well. 
Prepare a water bath by pouring very hot water into a roasting pan so that the water goes about half-way up the pan sides.
Quickly whisk together the pineapple mixture with the egg/flour/lemon mixture. Pour into the springform pan, and put the pan in the water bath. Place this in the oven for 50-60 minutes. 
Release from the springform pan and invert onto pretty plate for serving. Cover and cool in the refrigerator until serving time. 
That was delectable:
Pineapple Flan

The Guardian, And More Rural Studio

This is a great short called ‘The Guardian’ described as ‘a man, a swamp, and protecting what you love’ — on Dr Thomas Wilson, biology professor at Judson. If you’ve never had a swamp in your life to love, here’s to hoping that one day you will.

This was also a Vimeo Staff Pick:

The Rural Studio has been building at Perry Lakes Park here, and following are pics from a visit we made:

Perry Lakes Park and Rural Studio

Perry Lakes Park and Rural Studio

Perry Lakes Park and Rural Studio

Perry Lakes Park and Rural Studio

Perry Lakes Park and Rural Studio

Perry Lakes Park and Rural Studio

Perry Lakes Park and Rural Studio

Perry Lakes Park and Rural Studio

Perry Lakes Park and Rural Studio

Perry Lakes Park and Rural Studio

This Week’s Various

As always, all photos (unless indicated otherwise) are copyright DeepFriedKudzu. 

Domilise's, New Orleans
Saveur‘s best food city in the nation? New Orleans, naturally. It’s on the April cover of the magazine, too.

Also from Saveur, in the March issue: the recipe for the Rhett Butler cocktail served at Cedar Grove in Vicksburg.

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On April 15, Daniel Vaughn becomes Barbecue Editor at Texas Monthly.  And here’s what we get to look forward to! Oh yes.

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The Met is going to be open seven days a week beginning July 1.

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The FBI said this week that they know who stole $500MM in art from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, but the statute of limitations is up on prosecuting them. There is a reward for information leading to the return of the artwork, still, of course. The frames from which paintings were taken still hang on the walls.

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The former downtown post office on 6th Street in Tuscumbia is now City Hall, and the 1939 post office mural, ‘Chief Tuscumbia Greets the Dickson Family‘ by Jack McMillan is hanging there in the entrance.

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Tujague's, New Orleans
What is the future of Tujague’s? Please don’t let that fried-chicken-and-tshirt-shop rumor be true.

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Toomer's Corner Victory Decorations
Auburn will begin removing the oaks at Toomer’s Corner on April 23. Some series of poles and lines (which really doesn’t sound that great) will replace them so fans can still roll after game wins. Some other kind of structure will be built after the 2013 season.

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Restaurant August, New Orleans
(above, from one of our visits to John Besh’s August)
Highlands Bar and Grill in B’ham has been named a finalist for this year’s James Beard Awards as is John Besh with August. A million mazel tovs also to Justin Devillier of La Petite Grocery in NOLA, Tory McPhail of Commander’s, Alon Shaya of Domenica, and Sue Zemanick of Gautreau’s.  Yay to Prince’s in Nashville for being a JBF ‘America’s Classic’ and Emeril, recognized for his humanitarian works too.

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The owners of the ‘Derby Pie’ trademark are *fervent* protectors of that name — although everyone probably has an old-old spiral-bound church or Sisterhood or co-op cookbook with a recipe of that name in it, which slipped by — over 25 times they’ve sued others, including PBS and their own chocolate chip supplier Nestle, and now they have aimed their lawyers at Claudia Sanders Dinner House (named after Col. Sanders’ wife) in Shelbyville, Kentucky, for using it.

From the Lexington H-L:
The dispute arose over whether servers at the restaurant were calling their pie “Derby Pie.” Kern’s Kitchen, which created the popular pie in 1954, holds a trademark on the term.

Kern’s Kitchen’s attorney Donald Cox said they asked the restaurant to stop using the term, but management wouldn’t. A message left at Claudia Sanders Dinner House wasn’t immediately returned Friday.

“I don’t think it was on the menu. I think it was with the servers and what they called it,” Cox said.

Sure enough, look at the menu, and they’re calling it ‘Claudia’s Kentucky Pie’ not ‘Derby Pie’.

And…
Bon Appetit won a legal victory when a judge in 1987 found the name to be generic, but the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that decision.

Also: the bakery that owns the trademark to ‘Derby Pie’ doesn’t use pecans like most of us do when making that kind of pie — they use walnuts. And not just walnuts, but California walnuts.

BTW, if you ever feel like making something akin to this pie, I’d suggest something like this recipe at Epicurious which is just missing about 2/3 c of flour, and more chocolate to make about 1 cup of that (that’s why I think so many reviewers mention the filling isn’t adequate for larger pie shells), and you can decide which nuts you’d like to use between pecans or walnuts (pecans always get my vote) and whether or not to keep the bourbon in.

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The WSJ writes about the attention on Zelda.

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Forbes: Where Does Outsider Art Belong? Ex-Slave Bill Traylor Reigns Supreme At The Philadelphia Museum

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Wow!! This is how critics review movies in Ireland — in this case, The Paperboy. Just a few bits (and really, you have to read the whole thing for yourself, I left out so much).

So why is nobody standing up for the American South?…

On the outskirts of Faulkner Grove and Miller Falls, they are forever marrying their sisters, eating their neighbours’ innards and dancing sweatily on rain- drenched balconies.

William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams did at least enter the world in the deep south. Lee Daniels, director of this absurdly overheated, comically lubricious drama, has no such get-out clause…

In The Paperboy, Kidman appears to have made a conscious effort to burst free from the ghetto of impassivity. The Australian mangles every vowel (and a few passing consonants) as a hot-
headed loon named – these crazy monikers won’t stop coming – Charlotte Bless. For no sensible reason, she has fallen in love with Van Wetter and dreams of securing his release and making little Bless-Van Wetters…

With Precious and The Paperboy, Daniels has confirmed his status as the most emotionally incontinent director of his generation. Every damp shot throbs with passion, pain, anger, distress, love, envy or desire (sometimes all at once). Cinemas may wish to think about installing cold showers in the foyer.

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From Zagat’s ‘Best Thing We Ate This Week’: deep-fried deviled eggs.

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Lonnie Holley
Lonnie Holley at the Whitney this week.

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Reading this week:
The Maid Narratives: Black Domestics and White Families in the Jim Crow South
New Vintage: The Homemade Home
The 4-Hour Chef
Vintage Remix: The Interiors of Kishani Perera

Willie’s Yard Show

This week, I wanted to show Fred Scruton (love his site, too) another art environment I’ve been watching for a while now, thanks to my friend Suzanne W for first telling me about it.  Fred and I stopped and spoke to one gentleman who lives at the home; he’s not the artist — who happened not to be there at the time — but we had a great time talking and taking pics.

There are some dark themes/imagery going on this visit. Other times, I’ve seen him have big, fanciful flower displays here. He changes it a lot.

Willie’s art environment:
Willie's Art Environment, Birmingham AL

Willie's Art Environment, Birmingham AL

Willie's Art Environment, Birmingham AL

Willie's Art Environment, Birmingham AL

Willie's Art Environment, Birmingham AL

Willie's Art Environment, Birmingham AL

Willie's Art Environment, Birmingham AL

Willie's Art Environment, Birmingham AL

Willie's Art Environment, Birmingham AL

Willie's Art Environment, Birmingham AL

Willie's Art Environment, Birmingham AL

Willie's Art Environment, Birmingham AL